Cabin Journaltag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-18087542018-02-06T14:32:46-07:00Thoughts on nature, meditation and cabin lifeTypePadCome for the Beauty, Stay for the Wildnesstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010536e1e8ce970b01bb09f0d905970d2018-02-06T14:32:46-07:002018-02-06T14:32:46-07:00Some people love the mountains for their beauty, others for their challenges. But for me, wildness calls. Kathy Kaiser

I’ve come to realize that people love the mountains for different reasons.

Most people are drawn to the mountains in the summer, when nature puts on its best face: flowers blooming everywhere, the tundra carpeted green, elk and deer roaming the valleys, chipmunks and ground squirrels delighting tourists, and hummingbirds chasing each other. But when the flowers stop blooming and the aspen leaves drop, the fair-weather types leave.

I too love summer, look forward all winter to being able to hike to the alpine lakes or through meadows filled with Indian paintbrush, columbines and larkspur. But it’s not just beauty that draws me to the mountains, especially now, when the landscape is a bit tired and worn. What little snow that fell in the past two months melts quickly with our warm temperatures this winter. Left behind are sodden clumps of snow in shaded areas. Even the tall grasses I love all year have been flattened by the snow into messy piles (like the ones at Lily Lake, left). On these almost snowless winter days, the predominant color is brown, and on days when the long lenticular clouds barely budge, a somber grayness pervades the valley.

There’s hardly enough snow for skiing or snowshoeing. For another type of mountain lover—the one who craves the challenge of skiing down steep hillsides or climbing frozen waterfalls —this winter is a disappointment. I sympathize, because I love moving through nature—whether on snowshoes, cross-counry skis or hiking boots. But I’m not an adrenaline junkie, so something else compels me to come up to the mountains now in the dead of winter.

Last week, with strong winds and gray skies, not many people were venturing outside. But, after a week spent in the too tame confines of suburban Chicago (not to mention the overly regulated senior facility where my mother lives), I craved something wild. I headed for Glacier Gorge in Rocky Mountain National Park, where I found snow—old snow, but still better than the barren hillsides at lower elevations. To the west, the high peaks were black and ominous, and the outline of Hallett Peak looked extra sharp, like you could cut yourself on its ridge line if you weren’t careful.

I hadn’t put on enough layers to withstand the strong winds that were shaking the trees, so I never warmed up. I felt that slight edge of danger, maybe that same place that the adrenaline seekers crave or that the wild animals feel all the time (like the bald eagles, above and right, at Lake Estes, trying to grab a fish from the icy waters). For the bobcats, gray squirrels, rabbits, moose and other animals, it’s always a fight for survival, made even harder in winter with a meager food supply and often harsh conditions. For wildlife, there is no safety or refuge from living on the edge of survival.

We humans brush up against that world before returning to the safety and warmth of our homes. There’s something about these stark winter days that chills the soul, reminds us that there are places that aren’t meant for comfort, that aren’t hospitable to humans. Under the shadow of these high, dark peaks, I touch something elemental, non-human, slightly dangerous and unpredictable.

It was just what I need.

One Winter Daytag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010536e1e8ce970b01b7c9463d1f970b2018-01-18T10:43:13-07:002018-01-18T10:43:13-07:00Between warm and sunny days, winter descended for one day. I thoroughly enjoyed the snow and cold.Kathy Kaiser

Last week at the cabin, it was warm enough to sit outside bare-headed, gloveless and with no jacket. The thermometer said 50, although more likely it was in the 40s. In the sun and out of the wind’s way, that felt positively balmy. The only snow on the ground was in the shaded places that still retained the few inches we got weeks ago.

The night before I had waited for the outside temperature to drop before building a fire in the wood-burning stove, because if it’s above 40, the cabin gets too hot. At 8 p.m., with the temperature still 48, I gave up.

It felt like spring, like we had already gone through winter’s snow and cold, and the warm weather was returning. But at 8500 feet, I know we have at least five more months of possible snow and cold.

I had come outside that morning to find out why the Steller’s jays were making so much noise. It’s often because there’s a predator nearby: a bobcat on the ground or red-tailed hawk in a nearby tree. But I saw no obvious source of their wrath. So I sat and listened to them, at least 20 or 30 in the pine trees around the cabin. The more I listened, the more varied calls I heard, at least four or five. The main one is a scolding sound, but another resembles the grate of a saw, and Wikipedia describes one as sounding almost exactly like an old-fashioned pump handle. Amid this cacophony came a strangely melodic song.

Not only does the jay have an amazing repertoire of its own calls, but it can mimic other birds—around Meeker Park notably the red-tailed hawk, although in other places it might be an osprey. These jays are smart enough to have figured out that the sound of the hawk sends other birds fleeing, letting the jays eat any available food.

Since I didn’t see any predators around, I wondered if maybe the jays were just having a get-together, a meeting called perhaps to discuss this extremely dry, warm weather. Did this congress of birds support it or were they troubled? Did they enjoy it like me, sitting outside enjoying the sun’s rays, but also feel like something was not quite right?

But this week a correction came, in the form of snow and temperatures in the seasonable teens. Sitting at the dining room table, I watched the snowflakes swirl lazily, with no particular hurry to descend, floating in different directions at the whim of the slight gusts of wind.

When I went for my afternoon walk, the snow had utterly changed the landscape from the week before: from a harsh, dry brown to something soft and dreamy, a landscape tinted with a blue and white light, the clouds softly clinging to the tops of the mountains. The fir trees were brushed in white, and the aspen branches punctuated in ice.

I was happy to experience the snow and to feel the cold—to approximate a normal winter, even if just temporarily. In our new climate, it’s winter for a day. Tomorrow, it’s back into the 40s, and the sun will melt the few inches we received. Tomorrow, I’ll be able to sit on the bench on the side of the house away from the wind and enjoy spring until the next winter day.

Ponderosa Peopletag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010536e1e8ce970b01bb09e5d38c970d2018-01-06T13:08:08-07:002018-01-06T09:28:26-07:00If you identify yourself by your surroundings, then I'm a member of the Ponderosa People, a tribe that lives among these mountain-dwelling pine trees.Kathy Kaiser

It’s taken me a while to appreciate the ponderosa tree. I grew up in the Midwest among maple, oak and elm trees. I didn’t realize how much these huge deciduous trees formed my landscape—both exterior and interior—until I moved to Colorado, where the natural environment (as opposed to the urban one) is mostly devoid of large leafy trees, except for the cottonwood.

I read an essay recently by a native American woman whose tribe came from the upper Midwest. She identified herself as being from the Maple People, who used the trees’ shade in the summer, burned its wood in the winter, and shared a habitat with the animals her people depended upon.

As much as I love the maples and oaks, now that I’m in Colorado, I’ve become a member of the Ponderosa People. At first, I didn’t see their worth—no leaves to change color, to flicker in the wind or to spread a canopy of green or golden light.

But living among these pine trees at the cabin, I’ve come to see their perfection—the qualities that make them hospitable to humans and other plants. Unlike other evergreen trees, such as the spruce and firs, ponderosas don’t branch out until about 15 to 20 feet up, leaving space for sunlight to penetrate underneath. That means a ponderosa forest is full of life: bushes, flowers and grasses get enough sun to thrive under the shelter of the pines’ branches.

The ponderosa also leave space between each tree, which seems the mark of good co-habitation. I can walk easily among them, enjoying their rich odor that has been described as butterscotch or vanilla. Their wide trunks make it easy to lean against and feel the bark’s warmth as well as the sun’s.

This wide spacing, however, isn’t for my enjoyment but is essential for the trees’ growth. Their huge root systems (right) can spread as much as 100 feet wide and burrow down as deep as six feet in porous soils and 40 feet in fractured bedrock

Their deep roots are mirrored by their height—which can reach 40 to 160 feet. These trees can lift my spirits at the same time I want to sink my own roots as deep as possible. In the past winters we’ve lost a lot of trees to high winds, and I can see the empty spaces where a tree once stood. The whole valley feels diminished.

When I sit at my favorite rock perch on the hill facing Mount Meeker, I’m looking across a green valley dense with conifers. And yet as thick as these trees seem to grow, they are not to be taken for granted. Each tree is a miracle, a result of just the right conditions. For ponderosa seeds to germinate they need sufficient sunlight, higher-than-average moisture and heavy seed production, writes Audrey DeLella Benedict in her wonderful book, A Naturalist’s Guide to the Southern Rocky Mountains. “This fortuitous pairing of events may happen only once every sixty years.”

So these trees that fill the valley here in Meeker Park likely germinated at some point in the last century when there was extra snow or rain. As the climate grows warmer and drier, I worry that we will start losing them, that all the empty spots where the winds took them down won’t be filled in.

I try to do my own small part to keep them going. Two tall ponderosas anchor the front of my cabin (right), one nudging up against the front porch. In the winter, when I clear snow from the porch, I throw it around the ponderosas, to make sure they get enough water. If they died, it would be like losing a member of my family.

On dark nights, I sidle up to them, stretch my arms around them, hoping to absorb their strength. Benedict says that the largest trees in a mature stand can be 300 to 500 years old. I don’t know how old my cabin patriarchs/matriarchs are, but I sense some ancient wisdom, something learned from centuries of withstanding floods, winds, cold and humans.

I’m not the only one who is drawn to these trees. In Rocky Mountain National Park once, a young boy of about 6 came running up to me to take my hand and lead me to a ponderosa tree that he pressed his face to, one with the strong scent of vanilla.

“Can you smell it?” he asked me eagerly.

Ah, I thought, another member of the Ponderosa People.

Someplace Far Awaytag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010536e1e8ce970b01b8d2ca8811970c2017-12-28T10:28:05-07:002017-12-28T10:28:05-07:00The distance between Manhattan and Meeker Park is not one so much of miles but of space and stillness.Kathy Kaiser

Coming back from six days in Manhattan, the first thing I did when I arrived at the cabin last week was to stand outside and listen to the silence.

Although the dictionary defines silence as the absence of any sound or noise, it’s more than that. It’s something palpable that wraps itself around me, that calms my being. In this still background, I can hear sounds distinctly and clearly, rather than being ambushed by the cacophony of New York City—a combination of sirens, honking horns, people yelling, garbage trucks and more.

Amid the silence at the cabin, I could hear the soft whooshing of the raven’s wings above my head, the tapping of the woodpecker on the pine tree, the sound of a car’s wheels on the gravel road across the valley, the tinkle of the wind chimes and the gathering of wind through the pine trees.

When I went for a walk later around Meeker Park, I found I was attracted to small landscapes, like the sunlight illuminating the lichen on the boulder (above). After Manhattan’s massive views—from the Empire State Building there are skyscrapers, lights and streets as far as the eye can see—I’m drawn to the outline of a young aspen on a boulder (above), the late afternoon light on the tips of the fir trees, the grasses emerging from the snow (bottom).

Earlier, on my first day back in Boulder, I walked the Eagle Trail near my home, with views all around—the foothills to the west and the plains to the east. I don’t think I’ve ever been as infatuated with how big the sky was, how I could see in every direction, how much openness there was and how I could open myself to all that space, feel myself expanding into it. In Manhattan, I always felt hemmed in by the buildings and by the darkness that permeates the bottom of these steel canyons.

And yet even there, nature manages to get a small foothold. One morning, I heard a constant stream of sirens, and when I went down to the hotel lobby, I found out that someone had tried to set off a pipe bomb at the Port Authority bus terminal, just a few blocks down the street from our hotel. Walking down Eighth Avenue, which had been closed to traffic, I could feel the tension and chaos on the street. No one knew if there were more bombs or more men who aimed to destroy. When I came back up to the hotel room, I looked out at the street scene 25 floors below me, but something else caught my eye.

It was a pigeon, an urban bird with a reputation as a scavenger. Yet from my vantage point, it looked like something beautiful and precious, floating high above the street, making lazy circles in what little sunlight managed to penetrate these high buildings. It felt like an emissary from another world, one where religious fanatics don’t try to kill innocent people. This bird lived in a world where all it needed was a bit of wind current to ride on, far above the messy and chaotic human sphere.

The Land of the Freetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010536e1e8ce970b01b7c93b493c970b2017-12-08T15:45:19-07:002017-12-08T15:45:19-07:00This time of the year, with few occupied cabins and little snow, I enjoy walking off-road. Kathy Kaiser

At this time of the year, before the snow starts piling up and when most of the cabins are unoccupied, there’s a narrow window of opportunity for cutting across the land. I don’t consider it trespassing, especially since I’m following in the path of the old-timers here.

It feels like freedom, like being set loose from a narrow path. I can follow my curiosity and instinct down long driveways, fairly confident that I won’t find someone sitting on their front porch on these 30-degree days. In the process, I’ve discovered new views of Mount Meeker, old cabins and outhouses tucked in the trees, and the creek running below a small cliff. Once I discovered an old log cabin that looked to be from the 19th century, the kind an old miner or trapper would have lived in alone.

I know it’s the human condition to buy and demarcate a small piece of land as your own, to put up fences or, worse, “no trespassing” signs. But to ignore the signs, step around the barbed wire and walk across open land feels like reclaiming the earth as it once was: no boundaries, no restrictions.

I often seen faint animal trails, usually to and from the creek. These trails follow the land's natural flow. When I walk across the land, I sense where to go, like some instinct leading me along—to the top of the hill, or a protective grove of trees, or a pond. I like to think I’m becoming more animal-like. Maybe like a bear sniffing its way around the ponderosas, looking for food; or a deer finding the softest carpet of grass to lie down in. Or a turkey searching through the grasses for seeds. Or a moose nosing its way through the willow thickets.

A local once told me that Boulder County thinks there shouldn’t be any homes or structures in Meeker Park, that the land should be returned to the way it was before humans came along—to the elk and deer, the bears, the bobcats. No driveways, no houses, no fences, no outhouses or piles of wood. Part of me is drawn to that idea, to returning the land to some wildness, but there’s the other part that wants to be part of the wildness.

On the other side of the valley is a trail that goes to the top of the mountain. When I walk the trail, I occasionally run into the owner of the property, who never fails to remind me that his family owns all the land going to the top of the mountain, more than 40 acres.

It’s a thrill to own property, and I’m glad to own my one-third acre here, because it gives me a place in the world that I know is mine, that gives me some buffer from the rest of the civilization. I like the company of nature, and I wouldn’t live here if I didn’t believe nature and humans can co-exist. That requires some respect from humans for the natural world (no fences, no dogs running loose, no lawns!).

I know what I call “my property” is not really mine. I’m just sharing it temporarily with the animals, the trees, the grasses and the rocks. And my neighbors.

Retreat from the Worldtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010536e1e8ce970b01b8d2c1c208970c2017-11-26T17:55:31-07:002017-11-26T17:55:31-07:00A four-day retreat at the cabin offers silence, stillness and the hope of more sanity.Kathy Kaiser

The first thing I realized when I did a four-day retreat at the cabin last week was how speedy my mind is. It’s not easy to slow down but once I did, it felt like a mental vacation, like sitting at the beach and doing nothing but staring out at the waves coming in. Except at the cabin, it was watching the trees shake in the wind, while Mount Meeker remained perfectly still. It was seeing the clouds forming and reforming.

Although a retreat from the world sounded wonderful—especially turning off the daily assault of horrible news—it wasn’t easy being alone with my thoughts. Nor easy to shut them down: they have a way of crowding in, demanding attention. In my daily life, I’m always thinking about the next thing: preparing lunch, meeting a friend for a hike, going to my weekly yoga class.

But what happens when there is no next thing?— just an open-ended day with only a few requirements: make meals for myself, bring in more wood for the fire, wash the dishes. Other than that, it’s just sit, be aware of my breath, of everything happening around me.

Once I opened myself to the possibility that life is changing every second, and that I am part of the evolution, things got interesting. There’s the morning light streaming across the rock fireplace. And the wind howling so strong that I could almost regulate my breathing to its rhythm, like the receding and advancing of ocean waves.

I discovered that fixed thoughts don’t work. One morning, meditating while the light was still gray, I became happily aware that the sun had popped up from the east, painting one side of the ponderosa trunks with a warm yellow light. But as soon as I started making plans for a walk later in this welcome sunlight, I glanced up to see big, thick snowflakes coming down.

However, there’s no need for regret, for wishing the weather was other than it is, because the flakes are coming down so slowly and purposefully that I find myself getting lost in them, slowing my breathing with their descent.

Unexpectedly, the sun does come out later, but so do the strange clouds moving up from the east that partially obscure Mount Meeker (below) and other parts of the valley, like a game of hide and seek.

On my daily walks, I try to drop any game plan and let my feet take me where they want—down a driveway/road that leads to the ice-edged creek, over to an empty cabin where a white gauze curtain catches the sunlight, or to the edge of a meadow where the white aspen trunks are spotlighted in November’s unimpeded rays of sun. Over and over, I feel my feet on the earth, connecting me with something real.

At this time of the year, almost no one is around, just the occasional car passing by. Instead there’s a silence that fills me up, enters all the corners of my being that have been longing for this encompassing quiet without knowing it.

After four days, I return home where I make plans again. I turn on my computer and discover that alarming events happened while I was out of Internet range and realize they will keep happening whether I know about them or not. And I don't always notice the sky changing. But a part of me is still holding on to that silence and stillness for as long as possible.

Just Waitingtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010536e1e8ce970b01bb09d410fb970d2017-11-07T10:08:44-07:002017-11-05T10:13:55-07:00In this prelude to winter, the weather changes quickly—from an ice storm to clear, windswept days.Kathy Kaiser

In these tempestuous autumn days leading up to winter, the weather changes quickly, at the drop of a hat—or, in this case, a snowflake. Last week, temperatures close to 70 were followed by snow. Monday at the cabin, the air temperature was a frigid 22 degrees with a fine cold mist dissolving from the sky, coating the landscape in fragile ice.

The red rosehips had a shiny glaze, while every blade of the tall golden grasses was outlined in white frost, showing off the different patterns of the seedheads—dangling, feathered or spread out like fingers. The hillsides of green pines were dusted with snow, while the bare branches of the aspens and willows were stippled with ice. Graded shades of pale spread across the fields and hillsides.

The creeks were still running but everything else was still, hushed. With Meeker Park sealed in by the low clouds, it felt like the world had shrunk to this small valley, the landscape frozen in time. I hardly dared breathe to disturb it.

But two days later, the sun returned and so did the winds, with gusts of 80 mph. The whole world was shaken loose again, moving in such extreme ways it made me uneasy. On my afternoon walk, I found tall ponderosas snapped in half, and I said a silent prayer for the still standing pine trees. I know they must bend in order to withstand these unreasonable winds, but even the most flexible must ultimately yield to forces beyond their control.

The day before, on the Cub Lake trail in Rocky Mountain National Park (right), fall was nudging into winter. The ponds in the valley bottom were partly rimmed with ice, and the grasses, not yet battered by snow, were bleached of all color—and seemingly life. It feels like nature is pulling in on itself, stripping down to the elemental and getting rid of anything unnecessary before the snows come.

Something in me wants to follow suit. I’ve brought in most of the deck chairs, emptied the rain barrel, stained the decks, put plastic sheets on the windows, brought in firewood from the garage and filled in the holes made by the woodpecker in the outside cabin walls (while the hairy woodpecker watched my futile efforts from a nearby aspen tree).

These days before winter descends, there’s something in the air, not just the sense of clarity and purpose, but an expectation, like waiting for the other shoe to drop. I take a deep breath.

The Tyranny of Lawnstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010536e1e8ce970b01bb09d21a4a970d2017-10-30T16:59:38-06:002017-10-30T16:59:38-06:00Why do people mow lawns here in the mountains? Nature has its own intelligence; we need to let it run its course. Kathy Kaiser

On my walks around Meeker Park this summer, I found a lot of people cutting the grasses around their cabins. These nice, tidy lawns baffle me. Why would you want to have a cabin in the mountains if you have to re-create your life in the suburbs?

I already have that suburban yard in Boulder—a perfect rectangle of green manicured grass with the right mix of bushes and flowers, all anchored by a few well-placed trees, pruned to the perfect shape. It fits in well with the rest of the neighborhood.

But I much prefer the randomness of nature here at the cabin: trees growing wherever they want, some with lopsided branches; flowers finding the best place to grow, without regard for the best spacing or color combinations; and grasses wantonly growing, sometimes waist high. Somehow it all works perfectly.

From my desk by the window, all summer and into the fall I could look down into the tall grasses and observe the comings and goings of small animals. Chipmunks, ground squirrels and rabbits dig their holes, munch on grasses and use the cover to hide from predators: hawks, coyotes, weasels, bobcats. If you mow down the grasses, you’re exposing them and also losing your own connection to these animals, because they’ll go somewhere else where they are more hidden.

For the past two summers, I’ve battled with nature to regrow this area where the septic system was put in. The first year, I wandered around Meeker Park in the fall, looking for seeds that grew in dry places, then patiently waited for the first snow and went out and scattered the seeds on the dirt. Just a month or so later I looked out to see the juncos happily eating the feast I had put out.

Last year, I thought I got smarter. I decided to focus on just one area, close to the house, and cover the seeds with rich topsoil that I brought up in huge heavy bags. So what happened this spring? Grasses grew everywhere except where I had tried to plant them—a big bare yellow spot among the green grasses.

Last summer when I was in Wisconsin, I noticed that every house and farm had the neatest and tidiest lawns I’ve ever seen, as if it were a state-wide requirement or shared obsession. Wisconsin long ago learned how to control nature—tearing down most of the woods to create farmland. Maybe there’s still some ancient urge to keep nature at bay and controlled, some fear of it overrunning civilization.

But here in the mountains, in this semi-wild place, what do we have to fear? These days I’m more afraid of the effects of civilization than nature’s wildness. I have more respect for the nature’s intelligence than I do for human judgment. Let nature run its course; it can’t do any more harm than we have to the planet.

Silver and Goldtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010536e1e8ce970b01b7c9288b48970b2017-10-09T15:40:15-06:002017-10-09T15:40:15-06:00It's not the usual fall landscape, but the combination of white snow and golden aspen is beautiful in its own way .Kathy Kaiser

Fall and spring started the same way for me at the cabin: shaking snow off the aspen saplings so they wouldn’t break (below, right). In May, it was a late spring snowstorm that hit just as the aspen were starting to leaf out. In October, it’s the reverse sequence: an early fall snowstorm arrived as the aspen are starting to wink out.

I had hoped for a different fall day: the one where I sit outside enjoying the brilliant autumn sunshine, listening to the soft clatter of the last of the aspen leaves and dreamily watching the white clouds drift across the deep blue sky. Instead the temperature never climbed above 40, snow covered the ground, and the skies were smothered in low clouds.

This white and gold landscape is not your usual one, and it’s startling to behold, even as I wish for something more amenable and pleasant. The tops of yellow aspen are framed against the white-clad mountains, and a few aspen are sprinkled among the forested hillside, looking like someone accidentally dripped some golden paint on the somber green pines (top). On the ground, the white snow is littered with aspen leaves, like gold coins thrown to the ground (above).

Everything is strangely silent, as if frozen in whatever position they took when the snow arrived, as if waiting for something to happen: a wind to stir things up or the sun to reappear.

There’s only one thing to do: enjoy this rare day and wait to appreciate the sun on another day.

The Light Withintag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010536e1e8ce970b01b7c92582ca970b2017-10-01T19:34:00-06:002017-10-01T19:34:00-06:00In these cool and cloudy days, who needs the sun when you have the brilliant aspen?Kathy Kaiser

After four days of rain, snow and cloudy skies, the clouds briefly opened up and sunlight poured down, lighting up the aspen and exposing Mount Meeker dusted with new snow.

For a short window, maybe three or four hours, the world glowed again—not just from the lemony aspen, but also from the tall blond grasses, the yellow and green willow bushes, the undergrowth of rose, crimson and russet leaves and red kinnickinnick berries. Walking underneath a canopy of aspen, I’m showered with light from above while I walk on golden leaves carpeting the road.

Whole valleys are filled with giant bouquets of brilliant aspens. On the hillside, a smaller bunch, but just as colorful, poke out from the somber green pines. Down a small ravine, where there's just a bit more water than on the surrounding slopes to nourish these water-loving trees, runs a line of aspens, marked by dazzling white trunks.

In the warm sun, life emerges again. The previous week I had seen painted lady butterflies everywhere, but I figured these insects would either have fled south as fast as possible or would be dead from the freezing temperatures at night. Instead, they were fluttering everywhere, still feasting on what few flowers are left: mostly thistle but a few purple aster, some goldenrod

I’m always amazed by the fragility and toughness of nature. How do these delicate-looking insects keep from freezing at night when I’m all bundled up, with wool hat and gloves, on this day when temperatures are in the 40s? They look like they could be crushed by a strong wind, and yet they migrate from the Southwest and apparently (there’s a difference of opinion on this) return south once their food source is gone. (Painted ladies in Europe migrate from Africa, crossing the Sahara and Mediterranean!) Perhaps that’s why we cheer these insects on: at the same time we admire their delicate beauty, we’re awed by their ferocious will to survive.

By afternoon the butterflies went into hiding as the sun disappeared, and the next day, I’m surrounded by clouds on the Finch Lake trail in Wild Basin. Everything glows with a different kind of radiance, and the colors are so intense I’m wondering if I left my polarizing sunglasses on. But it’s the moisture saturating the whole landscape--dripping down the aspen leaves and trunks, pooling on the emerald green moss, intensifying the blue and yellow lichen on rocks and fallen logs (above), and gleaming on the car-size boulders.

In this rare Colorado fog, everything looks delicate, as if a small gust of wind could shatter the mood and silence. Hiking as quietly as possible on this rocky path, I’m startled when I hear a loud sound and then see a herd of deer heading up the hillside, almost hidden in the fog. Across the valley, Mount Meeker is completely obscured, and just 20 feet down the hillside, the tops of the pine trees are indistinct shadows. Yet alongside the trail the aspens seem to radiate from within. At this time of the year, who needs sunlight?